Happy Birthday, Walter

Born today in College Wynd in the Old Town of Edinburgh in 1771, Walter (later Sir Walter) Scott, one of the English language's most influential novelists. Best known for Ivanhoe and the other Waverly novels, he also gave us a number of well-known pieces of poetry, including these:

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!


Oh! what a tangled web we weave
When first we practise to deceive!


But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they see.
So daring in love and so dauntless in war,
Have ye e'er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar?

More of Scott's poetry here